Port finds home for 12.7 tons of dog food, WA March 26, 2009

Source: SeattlePI.com, March 24, 2009

It’s not uncommon for the Seattle Animal Shelter to get calls from people wanting to donate dog food. So when a woman called late last week about dropping some off, a receptionist told her to leave the bags in a bin near the entrance.

But there was a problem: 12.7 short tons of dog food wouldn’t fit in a single bin.

The Port of Seattle purchased 1,600 bags of dog food in June to test new baggage conveyors at Sea-Tac International Airport.

“The dog food is perfect because of the weight and the way it shifts in suitcases,” Port spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt said. “The manufacturer of the conveyor system actually recommended using dog food.”

Previously, airports used sand and water in conveyor tests, but if a bag broke, the new system would be damaged.

The $40,000 in dog food, paid for by the capital improvement project budget, was used to simulate peak operation. After the conveyor systems were certified in late October, the dog food went to a Sea-Tac warehouse.

“We probably would have gotten rid of it sooner had the snowstorms in November and December not happened,” Betancourt said. “After all that we said, ‘Hey, we have all this dog food.’”

And the Seattle Animal Shelter’s phone rang.

“We have room for maybe a pallet’s worth,” said Kara Main-Hester, manager of shelter volunteer programs and fundraising. “We don’t have a place to put all of it.”

Last week, a staff member called Northwest Harvest, an organization that works with about 300 food banks and meal programs statewide.

“I’m not sure what the plan for distribution is yet,” spokeswoman Claire Acey said Tuesday. “But I can tell you for clients, particularly at the Cherry Street Food Bank in Seattle, their pets are tremendously important to them. We get a lot of requests for dog food.

“This will make a big difference for people, especially those who don’t have much else.”

Port commissioners are typically reluctant to pass capital development resolutions introduced during the same meeting, but were told most of the food had passed its best-if-used-by date. Other bags in the lot have a best-use date that expires March 31.

Tuesday morning, the Port Commission approved an amended resolution that would give the dog food — 1,150 15-pound bags of Solid Gold Millennia and 450 18-pound bags of Diamond Low Fat — to the Seattle Animal Shelter and King County Animal Shelter, which are expected to pass the bulk to Northwest Harvest.

The Port of Seattle Police canine unit also kept some of the goods.

“Coming into an election season,” Commissioner John Creighton said, “I think it’s a pity that dogs resident in King County can’t vote.”

British vets list the 10 weirdest items eaten by pets January 15, 2009

Britain’s People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, a charity that provides free veterinary care to the pets of low-income Brits, has released a list of the weirdest items its vets have removed from pets’ stomachs.

The top 10 items, according to the Telegraph:

1. Ten-inch tent peg
2. Christmas decoration (star-shaped)
3. Kitchen knife
4. Alphabet fridge magnets
5. Man’s wig
6. Ann Summers underwear
7. Bell
8. Fishing hook
9. Socks
10. Rubber duck

So just how big a deal is it when a pet ingests a foreign object? Very big, says WebVet.com, which offers this advice:

Intestinal obstruction is an emergency that requires immediate veterinary attention! Make sure to give your veterinarian a complete history, especially if your pet has eaten any foreign material. Your vet will perform a physical examination and take x-rays to look for signs of obstruction. Treatment consists of abdominal surgery to remove the obstructing material and to examine the full length of the intestine. Sections of intestine that appear dead will need to be removed, with the healthy ends sewn together.

To prevent future rubber-duck-and-underwear-eating calamities, the People’s Dispensary offers a handy downloadable PDF of common (and less common) indoor safety hazards and ways to protect your pet.

Dog eats 15 baby pacifiers (and survives!), CA January 15, 2009

Source: LAUnleashed, Jan 13, 2009

From the “how on Earth?” files comes the story of Lulu the bulldog: a medical marvel with what can only be described as a cast-iron stomach.

Lulu’s owner, Jennifer Zwart of the suburban St. Louis area, noticed that her baby’s pacifiers were disappearing at an alarming rate,  but she never imagined the reason they went missing.  St. Louis’ Riverfront Times explains:

Then Zwart saw Lulu licking a pacifier. Moments later, the binky was gone. “She took Lulu to the vet and they did an X-ray that showed a large, unknown mass in the dog’s stomach,” explains [VPI Pet Insurance] spokesman Grant Biniasz. “During surgery the doctors just kept pulling out one binky after another. Some of them were black due to decomposition. They even took pictures of the pacifiers. We believe the dog had been eating them for at least six months even though she showed no ill effects.”

In all, veterinarians removed 15 pacifiers, a bottle cap and a piece of a basketball.  “They had never seen anything like it,” Zwart said.

Lulu’s feat of gastric daring led VPI to name her insurance claim the most unusual of the more than 75,000 claims it received in December.  (A dog that ate several wigs and one that ate a packaged fire log each received “honorable mentions.”)

Fortunately for Lulu, she “handled the surgery very well,” according to her owner, who assured VPI that pacifiers would no longer be left where she can get them.

Car impounded after dog drives away from car wash, OK November 7, 2008

Source: Pryor Daily Times, Nov 7, 2008

PRYOR, Okla. (AP) — A dog waiting in a car while at a car wash
slipped the vehicle into gear and drove in a loop before the car came
to a stop. Pryor police officer Brent Crittenden said the dog’s owner
was washing the vehicle when the 70-pound pit bull jumped on the dash
and somehow shifted the car into reverse.

The car backed out of
the car wash bay, continued onto a highway and then looped around
before coming to a stop at an automated car wash lane.

Crittenden said the vehicle was impounded because its owner was unable to provide proof of insurance.

Because the dog was registered with the city, Crittenden said the owner was allowed to walk the pooch home.

8 flights at Logan delayed as poodle toys with freedom, MA October 27, 2008

Source: The Boston Globe, By Sarah M. Gantz, Globe Correspondent / October 27, 2008

Cramped after a Saturday night flight from Detroit, Choochy the poodle broke free after her plane landed at Logan and for the next 17 hours, the tiny white fugitive managed to elude nearly a dozen Massport employees and State Police, holding up runway traffic as she cavorted on the tarmac.

Gideon Lester, a passenger on a delayed US Airways flight to LaGuardia in New York, saw the event unfold. “I’m sitting on a plane at Logan waiting to take off. The runway had been closed because a stray dog, looks like a poodle, is running around the tarmac. Several MassPort officials are trying to catch him.”

Her romp ended yesterday afternoon when she was finally coaxed into custody, but not before she managed to delay at least eight flights for about 20 minutes each, according to Phil Orlandella, a Massport spokesman, who said the pup “did create a little havoc.”

Gideon Lester, who was headed to New York, watched from his window aboard his 11 a.m. US Airways flight, which sat on the runway for 25 minutes as five Massport vans drove in circles trying to corral Choochy.

The poodle “seemed to be having a good time,” said Lester, artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre. “They looked like they were running cattle.”

His fellow passengers were mostly amused rather than annoyed by the runaway, he said, but were “a little incredulous that it would take so many men so many hours to catch this little dog.”

Lester’s flight took off after the crew managed to chase Choochy off the runway, into the grass.

The State Police dog unit assisted Massport’s fire and rescue staff and operations personnel in corralling Choochy at about 12:40 p.m., enticing her with dog food.

The dog had eluded officials Saturday night when she made her break, Orlandella said, because employees could not find her in the dark.

Orlandella said Choochy must have escaped from her kennel while the plane was being unloaded after landing at 7:15 p.m. Saturday.

“Obviously, she’s hungry and she’s afraid,” Orlandella said earlier in the day as employees chased Choochy around the runways. A safe but tired Choochy was reunited with her family, who live in Revere. Orlandella would not release the name of her family.